HANCOCK COUNTY — Ramona Carrico takes a little rock with a scarecrow painted on it everywhere she travels.
Her husband found the painted stone — which accompanied Carrico on a work trip to Reno, Nevada, just last week — hidden in the rock bed outside the Montana Mike’s restaurant in Greenfield.
A label on the back of the rock said to post a picture and where the rock was found on a Facebook page called “Greenfield IN rocks!”
So Carrico did, and she’s been hooked on finding, painting and hiding rocks ever since.
Through Facebook, she discovered her scarecrow rock was hand-painted by a fellow Greenfield resident, Donna Baker, who has hidden hundreds of the small painted stones throughout Hancock County and beyond.
“I’ve hidden over 200 rocks the last nine months,” said Baker. “I love it when they make a difference in someone’s day.”
Facebook pages are devoted to “rock” groups in Greenfield, New Palestine and McCordsville. Followers post pictures of the brightly-colored rocks they hand paint and hide throughout the county, as well as pictures from those who find them.
All three Hancock County rock pages were created in the summer of 2017, and all encourage the practice of painting decorative rocks with positive words or images, then leaving them out and about to hopefully brighten someone’s day.
“It sounds silly, but it’s really quite fun,” Carrico said. It’s a great way to connect with people, she said, especially in a time when personal interactions have been limited due to social distancing.
Those connections were the driving force behind the Kindness Rocks Project, which inspired the movement throughout the country.
At her website, thekindnessrocksproject.com, Megan Murphy shares how she was inspired to inscribe positive messages on a handful of rocks and leave them along the beach where she walks each day.
The daily walks were sacred to Murphy, who told herself that each heart-shaped rock or piece of sea glass she found were hidden messages from her late parents. Although she only left five rocks on the beach that first day, a friend of hers texted her a picture of one of the rocks she had found later that night.
Murphy denied leaving the rock, wanting to be anonymous, but her friend said: “If you did drop this rock, it made my day. I was having a rough day and the message just meant so much.”
Thus the Kindness Rocks Project was born, encouraging people to “leave rocks painted with inspiring messages along the path of life.”
The concept appears to have spread far from the coast where the idea first originated.
The “New Palestine Rocks” Facebook page, among others, promotes the painted rocks project as a great way to tap into your artistic side, make people smile and get out and explore.
“The world needs more kindness, fun, adventure, creativity, family time and fresh air…. This activity promotes ALL of the above,” wrote New Palestine resident Kelly Teater-Lucas, who administers the page.
Through it, she encourages community members to paint the small stones and leave them for others to find.
“If you are out and about and come across one take a picture and… share where you found it, and then re-share it for someone else to find or begin your collection. But remember, make more to leave for others to find. Keep the fun of discovery alive,” she wrote.
Teater-Lucas’ favorite kind of stones to paint are Mexican skipping stones, which are smooth. She buys them at local landscapers, paints and seals them, and leaves them around town whenever the mood strikes her. She often hides the decorated rocks in the Irvington area, where her fiance owns a business, and was thrilled to see an “East Side Rocks!” Facebook page spring up shortly after the idea caught on there.
Jenna Wertman tapped into the painted-rock craze two years ago when she hosted a community rock painting party to help celebrate the “Barefoot Boy” mural unveiling in downtown Greenfield.
She set up a picnic table with tubes of paint and a pile of rocks and encouraged everyone to paint rocks with whimsical messages, adding a label for the “Riley Mural Rocks” Facebook page, sharing details about the James Whitcomb Riley-inspired mural.
About a hundred rocks were painted and left at the foot of the mural on the south end of the Living Alley just off Main Street.
“I would love to see a new batch of painted rocks left out there. It would be great to get a new infusion of those,” said Wertman, senior planner for the City of Greenfield.
The rocks were a great way to get the community involved in spreading the word about the new mural, she said.
“The painted-rock trend can be a lot of fun for the community,” said Wertman. “You can just be walking along and now this rock you’ve found has turned into art. If there’s a tag on the back directing you to a Facebook page or website, now it’s taken you on a little bit of an adventure,” she said.
Carrico loves knowing that the rocks she places while traveling around the country can potentially brighten someone’s day.
“It’s just addicting. Once you get started you can’t wait to paint your rocks and share them,” she said.
Carrico buys the rocks she paints at a local landscape store. Local rock painters suggest using any standard type of paint, paint markers or colored permanent markers for the designs, then coating them with a layer or two of protective finish.
Stickers are not recommended, since they can be eaten by wildlife.
While Carrico holds on to the first two rocks her husband ever found her — including the scarecrow she named Mr. Boo — she typically takes the new ones she finds and hides them for someone else to discover.
When painting rocks, she likes to make them colorful and include a short message of positivity or encouragement. Sometimes she’ll skip the message and turn the tiny stones into cute little monsters, or seasonal designs like Santa hats, turkeys or spring flowers.
“It doesn’t have to look perfect to lift up somebody’s day,” she said.
Spreading a little bit of joy is what motivates Baker to paint and hide the little rocks, knowing they might be found by someone who needs a little lift that day.
It’s been the perfect pastime to keep her occupied over the past year, she said, when people seem to need a way to connect.
Baker loves to read people’s posts saying they found an inspirational message on a rock right when they needed it.
“Sometimes people will say how much the particular message they found meant to them, and how they’re going to hold on to it until they don’t need it anymore, then they’ll hide it for someone else,” Baker said. “It’s great to see these little rocks can really mean so much.”
